��A necdotes.
��were equally true and pleasing : I know not why Garrick's were preferred to them.
The hand of him here torpid lies, That drew th' essential form of grace ; Here clos'd in death th' attentive eyes, That saw the manners in the face x .
Mr. Hogarth, among the variety of kindnesses shewn to me when I was too young to have a proper sense of them, was used to be very earnest that I should obtain the acquaintance, and if possible the friendship of Dr. Johnson, whose conversation was to the talk of other men, like Titian's painting compared to Hudson's 2 , he said : but don't you tell people now, that I say so (continued he), for the connoisseurs and I are at war you know ; and because I hate them, they think I hate Titian and let them 3 ! Many were indeed the lectures I used to have in my
��1 Garrick consulted Johnson about an epitaph in three stanzas which he had made for Hogarth. Johnson replied : ' Suppose you worked upon something like this : 'The Hand of Art here torpid
lies That traced the essential form
of Grace : Here death has closed the curious
eyes That saw the manners in the
face. If Genius warm thee, Reader,
stay, If Merit touch thee, shed a
tear ;
Be Vice and Dulness far away ! Great Hogarth's honour'd dust
is here.'
Garrick cut down his own copy to two stanzas, which finally stood as follows :
' Farewel ! great Painter of man kind !
Who reach'd the noblest point of Art,
��Whose pictur'd Morals charm the
mind, And thro' the eye correct the
heart.
If thou hast Genius, Reader, stay, If Nature touch thee, drop a
tear;
If neither move thee, turn away,
For Hogarth's honour'd dust
lies here.' Letters, \. 186.
2 For Hogarth's mistaking John son for an idiot see Life, i. 146.
Hudson was for a time, 'for want of a better, the principal portrait painter in England.' Reynolds was apprenticed to him. Leslie and Tay lor's Reynolds, i. 20.
3 Horace Walpole wrote on May 5, 1761 (Letters, iii. 399) : 'I went t'other morning to see a portrait Ho garth is painting of Mr. Fox. He told me he had promised, if Mr. Fox would sit as he liked, to make as good a picture as Vandyke or Rubens could. I was silent " Why now," said he, "you think this very vain, but why should not one speak truth ? "
very
�� �
